Chocolate Pot on the Gibbon River, Yellowstone National Park (click to enlarge)
Here is one of the Chocolate Pots along the Gibbon River in Yellowstone National Park (click on the image for a more vibrant image, not sure why the preview image is not as nice). The Chocolate Pots are warm spring mounds created by minerals from the springs.
This particular pot is located adjacent to a pull-off on the road next to the Gibbon River. You can jump the guardrail and walk down to the river for a close up view across the river
A tripod allowed for a shutter speed of 1/3 second at f/22 to get the veil effect of the water dropping off the pot and smooths out the rapids.
The original image has a lot of dead trees and limbs to the upper left and right of the image above the pot. Photoshop’s magical Content-Aware fill function made quick work of those annoying composition elements.
Chocolate Pot 44°42’35” N 110°44’32” W
Norris Geyser Basin Panorama, Yellowstone National Park (click to enlarge)
From Yellowstone’s Norris Geyser Basin Museum, you can head north or south and walk among several geysers and hot springs. This is the view looking north from the museum.
The trail to the south of the museum is much longer and we thought it to be more interesting. If you walk the trail clockwise, there is a small hill at the end.
While the parking lot is large, it did fill up mid-morning (this was in August). Rangers closed the parking lot for about an hour as we were leaving to allow it to clear out some.
Norris Geyser Basin Museum N 44 43 35.83 W110 42 10.38
Bubbling mud at Yellowstone National Park
Here is one of the famous mud pots at Yellowstone National Park. You can waste hours watching these bubbles inflate and then pop. Once they pop, they resemble fried eggs.
To capture a popping bubble, I focused on an area that seemed to have a lot of activity. I watched the area I focused on and used a cable release to trip the shutter whenever a bubble looked like it was getting ripe.
Since these bubbles are in hot springs, there is a constant veil of steam moving across the bubbles. Because of the steam, I was concerned that I would not get any usable images. In post-processing, I discovered the Dehaze control in Camera Raw 9.1. Using the Dehaze slider made quick work of the steam and sharpened the image right up. Very impressive!
Artist Paint Pots, Yellowstone National Park N44 41 33.77 W110 44 16.75
